Son, did I ever tell you about the time I felt presence of God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, as we zipped along the busy highway of twisted pairs and optical glass where stranded men roam, and there, the codes and standards and bromides of silvery asps greeted the punishing ace of diamonds whose face was instantly melted by the exploding heat of WORD, did I? Scholars will say it happened on July 14, 2013. Politicians will say it never happened that way at all.

But Facebook, the galloping ghost of the last few reckoning things still measurable by those in charge, was taking notes. In our cautionary appropriateness, we had long learned that if one's particular secrets could kill, they probably would. At least, we learned they should. Men and women and children alike challenged each other for the power to take down another with a few words or less. Beneath the global surface stability fostering form, the human brick, the muscle and the stick, cosmic wallpaper was peeling into colorful ribbons of functionary excellence with each utterance. Women had become like spikes, crooked in their own justifying eyes, resilient to the past death, as raw orange skies hurrying away to whom no one knows, began to buckle and crack. I saw brimstone rocks hurled, piling up against powerless flesh also peeling away, as screams of the unborn torn from the crucifix suddenly were silenced against loud witnessing flashes, confusion the only pie still remaining, invisible signs of Asche zu Asche we knew had made us strong now lay broken into pieces. Here we recall the "straining at gnats" remains of that big rock record:

Bruce to Mike. "Man you love some stupid media! You're one of the very few I know who wants this punkass narc aquitted. I won't waste time asking why? Did you [watch] NBC Nightly News Wednesday night? West VA life expectancy for men is the same as in Gambia. 64 years only. X VA gets 17 more years Mikie! You got no mortgageyou can leave. Then you slowly start to hate minorities a little less each year! An environment of love with a new diet can change a lot for you. Maybe you were never at peace? I recall a much more happier Mikie that wasn't very politically concerned. That Mikie couldn't be fooled into not enjoying life everyday! Was it all only foolish youth? Are you now the joyless sensible man you were always waiting to be or is this a life turn best backed out of? Slightly curious as to the real answer?"

Bruce was on a roll, and he expected to sop up.

"The gene pool around here needs a little chlorine. For some of us, the brains we had went to our head, for others, getting ahead would be the first to go..." thought Gabriel.

"You're wrong about me on so many levels that it's pathetic, Bruce. Did you know NBC edited the audio of the Zimmerman calls to make him sound racist? That's documented. I have many black friends here Bruce. Bet you didnt know that did u? I love people of all races..and I hate people of all races. I mow a ladies yard that's black...did you know Booker T. Washington grew up not 5 miles from me? You judge me cause I come at FB with another point of view that lamestream and liberals will never hear because of propaganda and controlled conflict talking point media...I enjoy life every day to the fullest..I am very much alive...just because I choose to look deeper into the truths behind the stories and see the bigger picture and connect the sordid dots and refuse to hide my head in the sand...I guess that in your eyes [all that] makes me foolish? Joyless? Hahaha, good luck. I am at peace knowing God is firmly in control and allows things to happen for a reason...Obama and co. are using this case to divide and conquer thru race and also to promote his anti-gun measures. Because I choose to be awake is a problem for you I guess. Well as Alice Cooper so poignantly says in an early song...you can always turn me off! Hahahaha..."

The Counterfeiters

But Mike was having none of it. "PS, there aren't many natural food options here but I try as best i can to get organic etc...another eugenicist great idea to have country folks especially eat their GMOs so they can be overweight and sterilized (check into that goodie via GMO)...fluoridate the water, spray the skies with lovely chemtrails and keep us sedated with their slow flicker rate media and video games. Also, all the Fukushima radiation spreading thru the USA food supply...Haha you believe ANYTHING NBC says?..its all approved by your Bilderberg group talking points ...why shouldnt you? So yes, West Virginians along with all the USA have a low life expectancy...it's YOU that needs to wake the fuck up my friend..even with all the bad shit I am AWARE of, I stay positive and fight for liberty for all races...what if all the people that get divided by race woke up and saw the real enemy of the people..that's my mission..to create a critical mass of people of all races that are awake to the NWO's plans..."

If he ever was, and the Eighties are long gone, Mike Twigger is nobody's wilting violet, as Bruce's insulting characterization seemed to imply, as the counterfeiter will often do. To pine for the days of old when Bruce was still the reigning local rockstar in our favorite local band several decades ago and we were all punk standarounds vying for our own dreams of beauty and truth and breakaway elegance slushed in alcohol for public consumption and perishable solitude in private, was a stretch none of us could muscle into place, no matter how the knotted strands of time loosened with the frailties of memory. For some of us the brains we had went to our head, for others, getting ahead would be the first to go...

So Twigger continues his snap, "I actually would love to gtfo of the USSA entirely, but the globalist bankster cartel is everywhere....except Iceland, Switzerland, and a couple others, oh yeah, the two they haven't installed Rothschild banks in yetSyria and North Korea...my advice is to start with The Obama Deception; the 2nd one is coming out soon and take off the weed colored glasses when u watch it. And by the way, what's your definition of stupid media?

"Speaking of joy, Bruce, I trust you enjoyed patronizing me, as much as I enjoyed defending myself from your slander and innuendo, since I know how much you love to blast anything that displeases you, and from my own observations that is quite a pay load over the years..."

Then I was pulled into this mess in the name of old friendships and wounded foes, cracked wills and compound woes...

…peace out rocker, life is greater and more terrible than all of us rolled together into a clump of Indiana clay glued together with donkey piss and ripe for distribution to the masses. It just is, and none of us are.”

"Of course, since I'm just a punk ass cracka in Northern Virginia I barely know a grasshopper from a bullfrog, but if I had a son, he would look just like Trayvon because I just love me some [fill in appropriate genetic material here] woman, and Obama had no business sticking his nose into this case and remaining silent about all the murders in Chicago, AND all the nationally unreported attacks on whitey by black youths that HAVE ALREADY been going on around this country marauding in the NAME OF TRAYVON." There are no permanent enemies in this world and few permanent friends, I added quietly to myself.

"Thanks Gabriel!...I know Bruce is comfortable with his own limited vision of the world! LOL."

But Bruce was not finished. Not this Bruce. Not now. Not ever. Not until his own last breath on this happy but doomed planet his own songs depict. I saw no limits on Bruce Hellington's vision.

"Maybe but I am not as miserable as either of you are by a longshot. That in of itself regardless of the means is worth a great deal more to me than any political awarenesses you guys seem so happy about having."

"Mister Hellington, you sling words like happiness and misery around as if they are personal weapons and we don't know who you are, as if any of that has anything to do with the topics I or Mike or you choose to discuss on Facebook, with our respective families, or merely amongst two or three gathered. Guess you found that "real" Jesus you were looking for..."

After all, in the packed heat of a few minutes he had called us miserable, then happy, without a measure of service to his own creative and political skin on bone the band 9353 had exhibited for so many years, and we, among its biggest fans. Without missing a beat, marching to my own undaunted beat, I write, "And Bruce, if I'm so damned miserable, then I certainly don't need you adding to it...peace out rocker, life is greater and more terrible than all of us rolled together into a clump of Indiana clay and donkey piss ripe for distribution to the masses. It just is, and none of us are."

But Mike wasn't finished. He was filled with the spirit and drew forth his sword of sarcasm, and had another go at the reign of a fallen king whose own art is the spilling of misery, "Yes, I can see clearly now. I am soooo miserable! Wow, if it wasnt for your clear unclouded insight Bruce i might have been lost...thank goodness for your preconceptions. Now i must renounce all these political posts and come back into the fold of ignorant bliss. Ahhh, I feel so much better already!"

"Either way I am still very grateful to be nothing like the two of you are stuck being today. Because you're obviously enviable in your joy of life. I wonder how long it will be and which one of you goes first? I won't read what you have to say but you can still feel good I hope for typing it. Peace to the miserable," offers the satisfied prince probably breaking out a move to Barbra Streisand's Doing The Reactionary.

"It's about informing the public for a critical mass against the evil fucks that are behind it...so there is a purpose to it...or did you miss that whole thing...and i guess you disregard the other 40% of my posts that have nothing at all to do with politics..."

There was not a lot of fun in having to sustain this conversation long enough to bang out some semblance of closure, so I engaged the throttle with the hope that the arch antagonist would find something to bleed, and we could end this sparring non-sense. "No sir, I have never demanded or even defended the notion that people emulate me, foster me, or be enviable of me, but it seems you have quite a talent for projection, he who himself prides a honed skill for vile outrage...and is proving it once again by hijacking this thread with a string of ad hominems aimed at two adjuncts who don't fit the preferred profile of his own historied, and esoteric genius. Having turned toxic towards me a while back now, the Wrath of Bruce is not my burden. As for which of us three will "go first' I am quite sure it is me since I'm nearly 60 years old, thus having a number of good times already under my belt on both of you, and as you are obviously so keen to announce, carry more weight than the two of you put together the last time I calculated. Is that REALLY where you are standing these days, Mister? I have no doubt that you enjoy every moment of your life, and that you are going to live forever, or at least a day, a day, and a half day longer than I will, so rejoice, man rejoice, you have inspired the heavens. And hey, Bully Boy, that's right, don't read what I write, but who among us can't imagine I will know once you do. Go write one of your "miserable" songs, I mean "joie de livre" songs for the population, as you lead us to believe that you possess or exhibit the "joy of life" more than either Mike Twigger or Gabriel Thy do, and for holier than thou reasons to boot. Fact is you don't know what drives us, and how much and to whom we give back and for what duration and at what personal cost to ourselves. Some of us give and are not photographed with every bundle of giving. To be seen by men...but I applaud YOUR street work nevertheless. It is good-hearted. And I know you are honest with the buck. So why don't you just mind the Father's business without stepping into a situation of which you know so little and slinging crap as if you know it so well..."

Given that the Trayvon Martin case had nothing to do with stand your ground, as a legal premise, despite the Left's dubious intentions to make it that in challenging the Florida law. It was a self-defense versus manslaughter case from the very beginning." I wrote, responding to another comment on the thread that had lingered without clarifying resistance. Then I attached a video with Thin Lizzy or actually Phil Lynott's solo release of Ode To A Black Man.

His memory or at least, his faithfulness to it are tragically failing him, but as soon as this thread was over, he was on the phone with another mutual friend telling him how he, Bruce, had drilled me, Gabriel, a new one, or something to that effect, and he wanted this friend to join him in badmouthing me.

Bruce fancies himself a man who speaks truth to power, and I'm not here to doubt it because his next parlay could only make me grin as he fiercely foraged his stockade for even more predictable clichés to hurl. "The wrath of Bruce? Like such things exist or you could care? At least we don't have to hear a bunch of whining from you two haters today! I know you're both very pleased with it. Very Nice. You should have been a more serious artist Gabriel just like Mikie should have been a real guitarist. Art can do many things for your life if you do not come on board with the clock running and a list of demands from the community that must be met or else. You could have meant it instead. You could have given us something other than sour nonstop poly rhetoric in the last chapter of your life. I fully understand why there is probably no way you can't hate me no matter how hard you'll never try not to. The thing about it is I am still the same Bruce now as I always was despite your Jesus assumptions. It is the two of you who had the political personality shift, not me. Very nice Gabriel after one visit in my home ever in your entire life and you are now an authority on me. I remember why you came there now. You knew a piece of the puzzle was waiting to be explained as common knowledge when you asked me "why does DC hate me so much"? I had no problem answering you. The answer was known city wide for years. It's because you pulled out your dick on the stairway at the Boogins party at 12th and P st in 1983 and proceeded to piss on Bess Powell's legs forcing Rene Farkass to beat you up and throw you out. Oddly you called him the next day acting like the two of you were still good friends or something. That's just one factor as to why DC never liked you very much. Whether you regard yourself as an artist or a real estate man or just a pervert with a video camera trying to get people "Sued", I sense your largest anger comes from a sense of entitlement unfulfilled given your original assumed potential as some southern colonial coulda man. Now you should take it easy old bully put that inner Curly in check. You ain't got long to live and I really don't want to get personal here with you but I am about to and you won't like it fat boy not one bit when I get warmed up here. Mikie consider the life Gabriel has and consider it fair warning. Forgive me Mikie if you've been raped by a black man recently. I had no idea? It all now makes perfect sense."

Bruce apparently was pulling out all the stops even though each of the three of us already were quite comfortable squabbling among the stops, so Mike lays it all out for onlookers to gawk, if that was their game, emotionalites to emote as they so pleased, info gatherers to gather and info planters to plant, declaring that life was good, and he was fine once more despite the details of past flash in the pan soreness, "Molested by a black YMCA counselor years ago..lol but I have worked thru that pretty much fine and have forgiven him and myself to the point of where if I saw him i wouldnt even let it interfere with saying hi....and has no bearing whatsoever on things i feel/post sociopolitically. and my "shift" has taken place gradually as I learn about the NWO (hidden dynasties) and learn Gods plan in the Word. And uh..I still am a "real" guitarist...I play every day...but it's cathartic to let it out what u feel Bruce..better out than in...the more honest we are with each other the more we can build a solid foundation on which to fight the real enemies of the people...they want us divided...but really I think that's its petty to try and make character assassinations via experiences to make up for being bested by facts and knowledge of all sides concerning the original topic... I know it seems you are inadequate to discuss these things without knowing the whole story..but don't be defensive about it and lash out in a personal way...again..it's petty...better to inform yourself at the very least to get on equal debate footing on the issues...instead of your already formed "opinions" not necessarily based on facts and historical documentations..."

"PS. Thin Lizzy rules!" thunders Mike the Twigger.

"I love you guys!" transitions Bruce Hellington the Almighty.

"Wait a damn minute. You stole my line," bark I, the Gabriel Thy, adding "There are facts, Bruce. And then there are the William S. Burroughs cut-ups. Your last assessment of that smattering of GT trivia most definitely falls into the latter camp. I won't be callous enough to sort it all out for you since you seem just as capable of mustering a set of facts as anyone belonging to your "political persuasion". Interesting reading, though. Feel free to talk smack all day long against my name. That's what it's there for (by popular demand)..."

Tuesday, September 3...

Death Cult by Gabriel Thy

"Thanks Mike for the thread. I'd tried to find it a while back and gave up during a bout with scroll fatigue. Fact is, Bruce is not unaware of what's going on in the world. Why he suddenly has shifted from the ultra paranoid rantings about what a mutual friend whom we shall call Shelley had told him concerning top secret government facilities and missile silos and EMPs, et cetera, amply fertilizing his own keen suspicious mind of all things outside himself is puzzling, but I suspect it's just a manifestation of his role as self-annointed HIGH PRIEST in the scene defending his turf, dumping on us probably things he's been told himself. Who knows, or cares, anymore. 9353 songs are not exactly Pat Boone sings the classics...so this display of psychological muscle is just as dour as anything we publish (although I hear this latest CD is something altogether different, go figure). Since he's off playing rock star again, something's he earned, and we are not dropping everything to jump in his honor, he must attack. His memory or at least, his faithfulness to it are tragically failing him, but as soon as this thread was over, he was on the phone with another mutual friend telling him how he, Bruce, had drilled me, Gabriel, a new one, or something to that effect, and he wanted this friend to join him in badmouthing me. Andy said he just couldn't do that. So, I'm not impressed with Bruce Almighty's grip on all that much anymore. Who's the hater in this sandbox? His type of spirit rules the Left now, but the really ugly thing is that Bruce was pushing similar if not the same cautions about Big Brother on me back in the Bush years. Now he's calling the two of us haters. What a stinking hypocrite, or maybe he's just, uh, progressive!"

Maybe it's just the way we were brought up to respect the sacrifice our forefathers have made on our behalf in the service of liberty and freedom of conscience that I wouldn't change a word of the remark I recently came across. Fools, indeed. My friend and agile compatriot in the nascent anti-jihad resistance, young Chris Logan, made this churlish but spot on remark, "America, arming the Islamic world. Afghanistan, Bosnia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Saudis, Turkey and Uzbekistan. At one time or another we have given, or are still giving these countries military aid. There are probably many more, but this is all being done on the hope that the "moderate" Islamic world rises up. We are led by fools."

True, as I say, fools indeed, but perhaps this is their white hat way of one day fighting a fair fight. Remember the old west movies where a gunslinger would toss a pistol at his next victim saying he could never shoot an unarmed man. Not that I agree with this policy of arming the whole damned world, Chris, just making a sarcastic observation.

Project Scenewash has been heard to decree
the awful battleground where art and politics plea,
beat and battered each other up, none to agree,
and few are they who seemed the wiser...

Painting the fabric civilization vain
must wear to spare itself the critical pain
crude slavery unjust must follow
profane, the closed closet eye
torn against brash sky too soon
no rain, this wrecking ball
heart next to nix over noon
a vanishing dead stain,
the wretched call sign
of the blood red moon...

and that, of course,
is a course made plain,
fussy labors in vain no single man
can reign, by every account his plan
suffers the curse, his hopes lost too,
to the shallow gray range,
the eagle, the lion,
the bitter cold change.

A fine man and dedicated patriot named Christopher Logan honored me recently when he sent me a message inquiring, "Do you think I was being too rough with her?"

Damned if I know. She doesn't seem to be backing down, and is remarkably patronizing in her own right. Let's face it. Some people just don't get it, won't get it, can't possibly get it until IT affects them in some very personal way, very detrimental way. Perhaps a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson, J. Quincy Adams, John Wesley, Bishop Sheen, Winston Churchill, and Mohammed himself will get her attention, but probably not. Because she's of the mindset right now that it is better that 100 guilty terrorists go undetected than one innocent Muslim be given a second glance in an airport line. There's no defeating that logic in these sad, post-modernist, politically incorrect, globalist times since it parallels the romanticism that our own US legal system is grounded in, and pumps out through the state media. For better or for worse, smiley-faced Pollyannas will always be with us. You and me? We just keep plugging. In due time, we might be prepared to be of even greater service to those who criticize us now...

Q: Thank you for not attacking me but providing me with the information. But your quick turn to the passive-aggressive has not provided much in the form of education. I'll investigate anyway.

Pamela, I'm not here to educate you. One liners on Facebook will never get that done. There is a wealth of information out there just for the picking. You are correct. You must do the investigations, yourself. Take no single source as truth, or at least not until you have determined the source as reputable over a string period of time. That's the best any of us can hope to do. But what seems to be at issue here on this thread is whether or not this question of a global jihad in its myriad of forms is a matter of personal opinion, anecdotal evidence, or mere genuflection, but rather of determinable fact by a tough, keen look at all the evidence available. Propaganda is very tough nut to parse with mere cursory efforts...

And I suggest to you that Mr. Logan has the right beat on the issue, Laurie. News that screams forth everyday from all corners of the planet where Islam is actively pursing more territory, more corpses, more power under the guise of sharia, is not a mere blip on the screen. The signage of Islam on the march is everywhere. Signs, signs, everywhere are signs. Perhaps you know the song, perhaps not. But the point is, there's a whole lot more to this Islamic muffin than just some flour and a handful of blueberries.

Gabriel: Information is not knowledge.

Kirsten: This is an often misconstrued concept! But, to quote: Knowledge is Good.

Gabriel: Prudence is better. And all things being equal, innocence is best...

Bruce: Well I didn't want to say anything but I am glad you know this.

Gabriel: Well dear public, feel free to expose me to what else you and yours might speculate I need to know. The nasty truth is not as mysterious as we've been led to believe. GATHER OR DIVIDE. The whole point of my imaginary punk rock band is to suggest that each one of us must make the play. Bystanders be damned. Ignorance is bliss, twice the fun, bur perilous in spoilage. Our retaliation?

Inherit a role. Allow it to count. Face the music. And realize that this is the only rule by which we know ourselves as intricately as our detractors do.

Josh: Correlation does not imply causation!

Karl Popper

Gabriel: Obviously correlation is a more pertinent state of affairs, since to put matters in terms Karl Popper might appreciate, scientists can explain First Cause, but we are stuck with all pending correlations.

Maybe that was Wittgenstein, not Popper, but since they exchanged thoughts with fabulous animosity, the pending correlations in this case are probably nothing more than the dollars and cents of an ego economy - commonly called hubris - rather than the clarity that some uncertainty principle might avail us when the necessary light we might require to accept a generality at the sufferance of a specific is corrupted by political motivations.

In other words, all politics is tainted, and plagued with guesswork, but I am a survivor of my own knowledge, not yours. Might I bother this page with a correction? scientists CANNOT explain...well, that unintended typo effectively puts the skid into this thread. After fielding a few snarky remarks from leftist associates and reading some of the neck-snapping snorts of some rightie cohorts, I feel compelled to state:

Politics is just as irrational and existential a belief system as religion, at times just as pernicious, at times just as comforting, both springing from a loose structure of competing droves. In fact, we know today, there is little difference between politics and religion in its abstract condition or its peculiar habits. Superstition and misconception dominate both. Empty rhetoric imposes and services both.Spalding Nix

Faith is central to each creature as we struggle with imperfection in the teleological realm, and faithlessness is punished in one form or another at every turn. There is no certainty but uncertainty, and there is no uncertainty like certainty. We thrash about with words to form ideas that deceive us with words no matter where we spend our coins. No realm is satisfied, and logic is quickly sold to the highest bidder. Some might even say there is no rational distinction between politics and religion, but are merely similar thorns on the same blighted rose bush...

Like Ezra Pound, I cherish the right of every man to have his ideas judged one at a time.

Martinewe had a vicious good time at your dinner party Saturday night. I was a dundering idiot with only a handful of one line zingers to my credit.

Particularly liked the one about zeros not being worth as much as they used to be worth, and...yeah if we were all the same, we'd ALL be fighting for the right to be ourselves. End laugh track.

My own conflicted nature always rears its ugly head in these freewheelin' social situations where I set out to accomplish one thing and something else entirely unfolds. It’s quite difficult for me outside my own home sanctuary to remain laid back for any amount of tidy time. Like too much of a good thing I tend to find a way to be uncomfortable. Or impatient. For example. Due to the undetermined focus of our "professional" relationship, and some relentless competition with your love life, I found myself drawn into some frantic mode of “auditioning” for some "ephemeral" part in who knows what by the time the night kicked into overdrive. It felt silly and abrasive at the time, but I just carved out more of it as the night wore on.

Losing what little traction I wandered in with, I simply could not escape this compulsion to reveal more of the toothier "edges" of my "unbridled" personality, fast and without genteel context. Now, I don't feel special in terms of “genius” or “depravity”, but I do feel like I have operated under some rather interesting biographical circumstances which account for those nuances which of course can be both charming or boorish, depending on the color of the paint on the walls, and which for some stupid reason I think you should know about me as a quiver in your arsenal of representation, should this posture hold up under the weights and measurements I am piling high, like so many Philip Guston boots. The backstory hook, of course, is where the Francis Bacon's red meat hangs.

Standing out from the crowd requires a fetishistic story. At 52, I question if I can still depend on this "uncollected" story in any sort of effectual way, or whether time has truly passed me by. You hit it on the nose. I guess I AM a “somebody done me wrong” song, not by choice, damn it, because I seriously loathe whiners but I recognize that I am easily identifiable by these petulant thrusts of desperation. But who hasn't been done wrong on some scale? This scathing need to scratch and claw the invisible walls of my own bustling spirit just to remain “authentic” instead of consistently losing ground to somebody else more delicious and deserving than I am has conditioned me to calm these disruptive urges by imposing a state of constant work from which to redeem myself from these demons of fluster and failure, past, present and future. Translation: relaxation not related to work is the tool of my enemy.

Always competitive with no one in particular, but always self-manipulated by a reactionary need to fit into the social boat without making oafish waves, nevertheless I almost always find myself the contrarian, and with drink comes sinus roars and tinitus crickets leaving me near deaf except when I capture every syllable known to man and angel in a whiff, and the tendency to mumble or slur the beginning and ends of my words, except when I am in high boisterous elocution (the preacher’s spirit), another artifact of thick-tongued nasal and sinus infraction. You must notice how painful it is for me to relax. I am not cool, never have been. Even in my most self-assured times, I am a withering dandelion in a constant state of internal strife. Neurotic to the core, headstrong as a drove of blue oxen. A terrible combo.

Just for kicks, let’s try this Ray Davies lyric on for size:

You've been sleeping in a field but you look real rested
You set out to outrage but you can't get arrested
You say your image is new, but it looks well tested
You're lost without a crowd yet you go your own way
You say your summer has gone
Now the Winter is crawlin' in
They say that even in your day
Somehow you never could quite fit in
Though it's cold outside
I know the Summer's gonna come again
Because you know what they say
Every dog has his day
You're a misfit, afraid of yourself, so you run away and hide
You've been a misfit all your life
Why don't you join the crowd
And come inside
You wander round this town like you've lost your way
You had your chance in your day
Yet you threw it all away
But you know what they say
Every dog has his day
Look at all the losers and the mad eyed gazers
Look at all the looneys and the sad eyed failures
They're giving up living 'cos they just don't care
So take a good look around
The misfits are everywhere
La la la la la la
You're a misfit
Afraid of yourself so you run away and hide
You've been a misfit all your life
But why don't you join the crowd and come inside
You wander round this town
Like you've lost your way
You had your chance in your day
Yet you threw it all away
Now you're lost in the crowd
Yet, still go your own way
This is your chance, this is your time
So don't throw it away
You can have your day
Yes it's true what they say
Every dog has his day

So Martine, dear and delicate friend, what am I grabbing for with this dweebish confessional? Well I suppose, Dylan's pieceIS YOUR LOVE IN VAINthe song we played at our wedding, summed it up rather well, but despite those whizzing late hour best intentions we four stomped all over the final track because yes, the tenor of the night had certainly shifted, so the song fell sonorously flat on ears and fears alike...

Do you love me, or are you just extending goodwill?
Do you need me half as bad as you say, or are you just feeling guilt?
I've been burned before and I know the score
So you won't hear me complain.
Will I be able to count on you
Or is your love in vain?
Are you so fast that you cannot see that I must have solitude?
When I am in the darkness, why do you intrude?
Do you know my world, do you know my kind
Or must I explain?
Will you let me be myself
Or is your love in vain?
Well I've been to the mountain and I've been in the wind,
I've been in and out of happiness.
I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings
And I've never been too impressed.

The last verse doesn’t really apply but here it is anyhow:

All right, I'll take a chance, I will fall in love with you
If I'm a fool you can have the night, you can have the morning too.
Can you cook and sew, make flowers grow,
Do you understand my pain?
Are you willing to risk it all
Or is your love in vain?

Yep, Zundmanus, it’s like this. I’ve been reaching for the stick of fire my entire life. And rising up with a fistful of fire ants instead. Sure, we can be friends. I’d hate to lose you to the exquisitely balanced noise in my head.

But in a specific sense, I’m just not sure you are up to the task of managing my so-called career. I’m an awkward intelligence. You’re the pride of the party in the next room, a political maven who chases the next march, the next hero, the next will of the people. That’s your whipping post., your crucible, your bounce and your beat. I’m a two-fisted thumbwrestler dodging the heat. Or a horse thief.

Is this a bitchy kiss-off letter? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

No f*cking waaaaay. I’m just schlepping around on the hoof of a writerly obsession after a strong and intoxicating prowl.

"Two by two he sent them out
One to euphoria, one to disease
For the earth gives no pardon
To a nation on its knees..."

There’s no shame in sorting out conflicting interests, curtain calls, and the sticker shock of bold reality as it tightens its noose around the neck of our greatest laid plans. It’s the jailer called the nick of time we must impress. There’s you. There’s me. There’s a rope and a tree. So let’s be honest. My own need for a strong support pivot trumps my need for gesticular friendship, not because I have a surplus of friends, but because I rarely have any, and I am far too weary of being a voyeur to all manner of things in other people’s lives to mistake the differences at this late hour of my seating.

But plainly, I must build a platform from which to explode past all this garbage of soul. My own platform. Even if to encourage my own hanging. Not one among many. But many within one. The absence of this platform is a crippling horror to me, so I need to regain my focus again. With adaptive joy and rippling elation, I can probably do without that coveted niche in the social sphere, if that is the answer to my riddle, but ONLY if I cogently embrace an affirmative exile to the rigors of mundane studio life, completely and without regret, in an unaccommodating, isolationist exile concerned chiefly with the redeeming and compass solitude of work, turning my back to the cheers and jeers of an imaginary public. Yawns for the big whoop...

In any given scenario I’m that determined. I’m that jealous. I’m that vain. But I’m just as easily none of those things. All vigorous storms of personality are complex forces whipping around inside the skull of the dull facade. Grand schemes are fabulous rudders but are as toxic as jet fuel if left ungirded. If I am to perish in a frothing, tortured capitulation to society, I’d prefer to do so in the “act of working” rather than trapped in an inscrutably scruffy “act of socializing”, or as Neil Young might say, “It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.”.

I blow. It’s what I do. Sometimes it’s a trumpet, To my sweetie, often a soft kiss. Sometimes I blow nothing but chunks.

Splatz against your radar? I hope so.

Are we tried and true friends, or partners on the plunge? Are we tied to rote rituals or do we demand a stake in the results? Is there anybody out there who can cut to the quick and tell me who I am, and not who they want me to be? Apparently, I’m just not ready for the ploughing. I need better, more intense or relevant work. I'm not interested in stringers. I want the big show. I'm not some dark soldier lying in wait to ambush the bride, but I am never far from frayed nerves and the panic of having failed the potential I was once certain was mine to exploit as warranted by my birth. Yes, MY BIRTH. And subsequent run of those lands of my forefathers, masquerading as a fool on an errand to explain time, and time alone. (Now that's a super-sized dollop of artistic arrogance if you're looking for one.)

I need a reality check. With lots of zeros.

Good luck with the interview, Martine. Didn’t see Zool, sadly. He didn’t call. I figured he’d changed his mind, having read a few more lines from the Cull, and I waited too late to call him. We’re deadbeats at a political rally anyhow...

Originally published Mar 14, 1997. The belief in the sanctity of words is never more substantial an argument for that great principle than when those who use words to slander others slander themselves instead.

Neither Sadie Plant nor Stewart Home could be called 'Debord's puppy dogs', so try them outPlant: 'The Most Radical Gesture', Routledge, 1994; Home: 'The Assault on Culture', AK Press, 1988(?). Home also edited a reader "What is Situationism?' (AK Press, 1993) which has an essay by Jean Barrot, an interview with Ralph Rumney where he credits Michele Bernstein with doing most of the work of the S.I, and a reprint of the Dave Wise 'End of Music' article which started the whole S.I=punk thing which Greil Marcus was so keen on.

Does your p.s mean that Len's Debord book is on sale? He sent me a letter a year ago saying it was on its way, but I've never heard anything more. Who published it?

I told him both times in a rather grinding voice that I didn't want to hear about his petty acts of vandalism, that I didn't go for that sort of thing, adding something to the effect that yeah, he's been written up about these sort of things. He didn't even probe for content, but was juiced that he was "creating rumor, and rumors of rumors..."

Thanks Tim for the Home tip. Of course Home and Marcus rank as treasonous characters off Bracken's critical tongue, but since one of Bracken's novels is called "The Secret City" set here in DC, and not very written to boot, I now wonder who's secret is really being kept. A secret society is far preferable to an openly political cadre in as far as I am concerned. To pull a feather from the SI cap, to be political in today's climate, one must eschew politics, and simply use the game to learn and to expose, but the idealism and ranting is misleading and fruitless. Why imitate that which we find rather transparent and offensive in that which we would overthrow? As for Len's book on Debord, no, it's not off the presses yet. We only sent the hardcopy and disks to his publisher at the end of January. Feral House supposedly is publishing it, having already paid Bracken his author's slice but apparently (and here goes the gossipmongering again) Adam Parfrey is battling not a few personal problems of his own (sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll), and had subsequently lost the package in his corporate (well, small press) transition from Portland OR to sunny LA...

But Len called me earlier this week saying that Adam had called him, got his answering machine, but confirmed that all the components had been rediscovered and he was busy putting the money together to move forward. The book will actually go to a Michigan printer as soon as all the rough edges are worked out. Late '97 is probably the earliest bet. And the pre-press GT scoop on the Debord bio is this: it's sad that the author didn't interview Bernstein first hand. The book was researched from lots of published sources, and while a rather mediocre book from the standpoint of traditional biographies (and Len's own ridicously repeated rants that his book will stand for 500 hundred years), it is quite informative to someone who knew next to nothing about the movement and its major players beforehand.

My P.S. comment was solely reflecting Len's eagerness for any publicity, good or bad. Indeed I had gotten his name "out there" with the E-mail he so pompously despises. When he called me up to brag (to report on his revolutionary activity, in his "own" words) about his latest graffiti surge this week, and actually the week before as well, I told him both times in a rather grinding voice that I didn't want to hear about his petty acts of vandalism, that I didn't go for that sort of thing, adding something to the effect that yeah, he's been written up about these sort of things. He didn't even probe for content, but was juiced that he was "creating rumor, and rumors of rumors..." (My words). Len Bracken's a character alright. Trust Feral House gets its act together and puts the ink to the paper on this one. Hey, I earn a few lines of credit in the book as well, so let's carry on...

Lynn, Lynn, Lynn, Lynn, Lynn, Lynn, Lynnyesterday you were giving DC the fat finger of ho! ho! ho! I love my California lifestyle, and a mere 24 later it's I miss the things California can't even begin to hug.

I can sympathize, but from where I sit, stifled in a dangerous room in which I cannot trust another: it's either Steve dropping beers, Tim squawking about what a good boy he is, or Liberty Sue the mere voyeur, who's defiantly proving she's not the creator sort but she IS sweating me out for everything I might make happen although that's as far as she reaches across the table of comprehension, and in the midst of all this east coast fog I swear I think your orbit must be a thousand increments swifter than this slow comet to nowhere sane I ride. Old or better yet, no sex, no friends, no inspiration but my own irredeemable past no one else can even appreciate due to generational bias or just plain selfishness slapped between two slices of dry white bread. Even Bracken's $500 publishing job is beginning to run its course. He said he wanted to learn PageMaker, but it's me putting his book all together. But that's okay. That five bill windfall blows away all but Sue's saintly efforts these past few years as I've worked for free so long I hardly know how to break with the tis better to give than receive dead end trail of do unto others before they do unto you routines smothering me into a gray soul of nothingness these past thirteen DC years I now have agreed to despise for the trouble they really were. That includes the Jack years and the Tim years synthesized into one long Eighties decade, now over...

I want a revolution asserting that revolution begins and ends with the broken mirror of selfadjustment. It's intellectual dishonesty to preach Boasism where all cultural mores are globally relative, thereby equally important and then claim how exploited or neglected the poor natives are in some remote neck of the woods, unblemished by cabbage patch dolls or fast food chains.

I have yet to begin writing the piece on the Great Rupture of Dollhouse Status Quo of 1996, but hang in there dearies. It promises if I may be so bold to be the most brilliant synopsis of where I stand on the issues I will have written to date. Take me at my word. Mine enemies have yet to become acquainted with the visionary depths and sincerity of my homegrown wrath.

To earnestly prefer living alone is one thing, Lynn. Manipulating others within your own realm of responsibility beyond the call of duty to achieve it or its converse is yet another. I've worn those boots, and cannot feel proud.

What exactly is a Buck Down poem in your book, Lynn? It's a damned shame he & I live two blocks apart and still have never met, although Howell still sells him herbal resolve as far as I know. Tom was cut out of my will be done several months back. I now claim no friends from that bygone era. The Tim and Jennifer show closed the door on that whole scene forever. Sorry to be so harsh, but the crimes of personality perpetrated for so long upon Sue & Goo are finally being addressed. We simply want a more honest, "less disturbed adolescent" cast of characters in our lives, even if that means zero is the translator of greater sensitivity.

I do not want to scream in quiet neighborhoods. I want to draw quietude into the neighborhood noises of confusion, criminality, corruption, and hatred. I do not want a revolution or two or many that paralyze the good ears along with the bad ears. I want a revolution asserting that revolution begins and ends with the broken mirror of selfadjustment. It's intellectual dishonesty to preach Boasism where all cultural mores are globally relative, thereby equally important and then claim how exploited or neglected the poor natives are in some remote neck of the woods, unblemished by cabbage patch dolls or fast food chains.

Appalachian cabin...

Now don't get me wrong. Capitalism and scientific preference as practiced by rightwing multinationals is as evil as the night is long, because nary of us wants to return to the cave this fiscal war machine with its nuclear factor is promising us, but then do we, the hip to almost any cause, middle class Americans think that shackaninny Appalachian coal miners just a few nails and rotten boards away from the caves themselves should simply be content with their obscene lot because that makes them closer to nature and the way MOST folk lived only a few centuries ago before capitalism and the Industrial Revolution catapaulted us into the age of universal materialism on one hand and the brute recognition of both our rich and our poor neighbor's lot on the other?

Sorry guys, the Hoke & Bracken influences rear their ugly trumpets once again in complaint. Liberalism, I repeat, despite its formidable attempts to rectify not a few horrific excesses of the conservative might is right rollcall, is simply not the salvation of mankind its hydraheaded constituents would have us believe. The radical middle, inheriting grace and dignity from both ends of the spectrum and discarding the aggression and filth of each, and developing new forms to meet new norms is the only smart approach that 21st century humanity can endorse, a global plan for unification of the planet, sailing straight into a vigorous segregation if need be...

Segregation you say? Hey man, gaze about, the world IS segregated!!! Even as a much ballyhooed white male I cannot mingle among the young and beautiful cliques without suffering their abrupt arrogances. I cannot, by virtue of exclusionary practices of those I would solicit, freely engage in sex, an act many honored minds have stipulated as the driving basis of a healthy psychology itself, the will to life, in Freudian terms. I cannot even buy love with a coin of a different sort of razzle dazzle, although many can and do. I cannot walk among certain so-called neighborhoods without enduring verbal or physical harassment. I cannot even admit publically my favorite singer and poet without illiciting attacks of generational bias or something worse. Whether right or wrong, segregation is a very real fact of life.

Something must be done, and history has shown only a heavy hand ever gets anything done, but of course revisionists of every flavor always love to point to the past heavy hand and call it evil, thinking what THEY are doing today is oh so very different than what has passed by already on this long treacherous hike back up the mudslide mountains of yesterday.

Conflicts of interest are the number one cause of misunderstanding and subsequent belligerence of rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, dim and bright, fashionable and drab, power ethnic and undergrowth the world over. Admitting this, why is a political, economical, or ecological plan which looks straight into the eye of the beast, recognizing these cold but unchanging facts, suddenly dismissed as intentionally unworkable, unconscionable, fascist, even incorrigibly evil in its very articulation?

These few paragraphs certainly are not a plan, but they do beg the question: why does liberalism fail to meet the needs of the many while seducing the many to despise a more conservative approach to battling the primary nature and nurture questions that simply won't evaporate in the context of a increasingly dissatisfied population where liberalism has reigned supreme for nearly a century in the most powerful goods-generated civilization on earth. After all, before the pendulum began to swing too far to the left, liberalism has been the long slow churn towards improving the liberty and quality of life for the greater bulk of the world's rational populations for centuries.

It's not the goods that corrupt. It's the cancerous envy growing inside us that corrupts, and that envy is a product of a greedy rightwing metabolism and an irresponsible unfocussed leftwing behaviorism, and that my sweets, is the problem, and no revolutionary chant, crisis, or convulsion, and no liberal tax abolition or redistribution scheme will suffer the idiots who continue to misrepresent the human condition or its corruptible nature while denying the importance of a clear-minded and historically proven urgency for not idealizing but of respecting both nurture AND nature in their prime.

On both sides of the political equation where humanity is an irrational number, neither side proves its case with anything but a sloppy solution. Something must be done, and history has shown only a heavy hand ever gets anything done, but of course revisionists of every flavor always love to point to the past heavy hand and call it evil, thinking what THEY are doing today is oh so very different than what has passed by already on this long treacherous hike back up the mudslide mountains of yesterday.

Archives

Musical Chairs

The Literary Chip

Quoth the Raven

"Intellectual economics guarantees that even the most powerful and challenging work cannot protect itself from the order of fashion. Becoming-fashion, becoming-commodity, becoming-ruin. Such instant, indeed retroactive ruins, are the virtual landscape of the stupid underground. The exits and lines of flight pursued by Deleuze and Guattari are being shut down and rerouted by the very people who would take them most seriously."